Poison
by Believing in tomorrow
Summary: Like a poison, she invaded every inch, every fiber of his very being coursing onward...making him weak. There was no cure for this poison. And he wasn't looking for one. Main: SasuxIno. Rated M for mature themes.
1. Lost

_Poison_

Chapter One: Lost

* * *

_You will lose everything…_

_Those that you cared for will be whisked from the depths of you mind_

_And you shall know no more of your emotional ties…_

* * *

Yamanaka Ino woke with a start at the eerie voice in her head.

Everything was fuzzy. Dimly she became aware of the presence of rain. She was lying on her back on the ground in the open, staring listlessly up at the gray sky which shed freezing tears of coldness upon her.

_What happened to me…? _Was first thought that flitted through her numb mind.

It was very dark outside and it wasn't due to the dreary rain shower so she assumed it was night. Her head throbbed faintly as if she had been hit but she couldn't feel any bump at all. She couldn't remember much of nothing except her name.

_My name is…Yamanaka Ino…but…who exactly am I?_

The young sixteen year old blinked to dispel the sky water from her vision. It still pelted down unremittingly. A sigh escaped passed her pale, slightly pinkish lips.

If only she knew who she was…then she might have an idea of what to do…or at least go.

She reflected back on the voice that had echoed in her mind during the darkness she had been in. The voice was deep and male…silky…emotionless…colder than this rain that fell down on her even…

_Whose voice was that?_ She wondered.

Maybe he had some idea of who she was. If she could find him, maybe he could help her. Help her get back _something_. But she hadn't the faintest clue of this presumed person. Not his name, who he was, not even an inkling of what he could look like.

For some reason though…she knew he was very handsome…she could tell just by his smooth voice that rang clearly in her emptiness…

After some deliberation, she sat up, using her hands as leverage. She glanced down at her body. On it was a tight fitting night gown soft pastel pink in color. Ruffles outlined the one inch straps and the hem line. A tiny fancily tied bow was perched in the middle of her fair bosom. The gown reach about half way down her pasty looking thighs and it had slits on the sides.

It was too thin for her liking.

And it was cold. Very cold.

Her body trembled with an involuntary shiver as a huge gust of wind struck her. The liquid soaked percolated through gown and the skeletal material stuck to her like a second skin. The onslaught of rain became heavier.

Rough yet fragile hands suddenly went to her face. She stared at the appendages, looking at the thin fingers and the deep thin lines engraved meticulously in her palms. One hand reached up to her head and raked fingers through damped blonde locks. Her hair was long and fully out. It caressed the sides of her waist and pooled onto the damped soil.

Briefly she mused on what color her eyes were. She hoped they were pretty. Pretty and blue like the sky on a cloudless day. She didn't know why but that's what she desired. She also didn't know how she remembered what the sky looked like.

So she knows things…but can't remember anything. That was her condition. She tried to recall something more than that. Things popped in her mind.

_Konoha…shinobi…jutsu…sensei…_

She frowned. Okay…so she knew those things too. She knew where she was from, how this world she lived in worked and all. Now she tried to remember people. Nothing came up but blurred disoriented faces and indiscriminate names.

_Shikamaru…Chouji…Asuma…Sakura…Tsunade…Kiba…Hinata…Shino…Sasuke…Naruto…Kakashi…Sai…Kurenai…Akatsuki (what an unusual name she thought)…_

There were more names but she didn't bother pondering on them because there were just too many. But at least she knew that she had known people. She wondered if those faceless persons were people she cared about. She didn't feel anything upon counting off the numerous names. She also wondered if the name of the voice she had heard in her head had been among them.

…

Ino hated this.

Why couldn't she recall anything except scrupulous facts with no memorable emotional connection to them?

* * *

**Author's Note**

I couldn't resist putting up the first chapter so I did. This idea came out of nowhere and I went with it because I really liked it. I don't usually write dark things but this will be a _somewhat_ dark story. Hope you liked it and sorry it was so concise. Thanks for reading! XP I don't own **Naruto **for the record.


	2. Seeking

_Poison_

Chapter Two: Seeking

* * *

Ino had reached and grabbed a conclusive decision.

She couldn't just sit here on her butt in the cold rain and possibly fall ill. She needed to get up and seek help. Any sort of help. So that's what she decided to do.

With premeditated speed, she rose wobbly on tingling deadened legs. Icy rain still dispensed harshly from above as a clap of thunder rumbled and briefly illuminated the dark sky in a sharp blue-ish white light. She looked up and fixed a fierce glare the gloomy firmament.

How she hated the uncomfortable feeling of numbness.

How she hated this impassive rain.

How she hated all of this.

A profound gust of wind sliced her with its bitter sharpness. Her damp blonde locks dully fanned around her in a billowing arc of waves.

Again…she wondered; why was she the one to be rendered unable to recall what she strongly tried to recover:

Her memories. Her memories with precious emotional connections. Those faces that faded and wavered in and out of her internal mental focus…

She was running to them, desperate, trying to reach them. These memories, these feelings, these poignant links that she knew had bonded her to those undistinguishable persons.

But every time she attempted to retrieve them, there seemed to be a wall impeding her to them and then they were gone. Gone from sight. Out of her reach. The wall…a pitiless solid black wall of unfeeling. It did not care, it was doing its set purpose…and that was to keep her from regaining what she unknowingly lost.

A surge of apposite resentment rippled her petite body, leaving her stewing in a deep pot of immense burning fury.

Ino wanted to scream out her frustration, kick, hit, punch; _anything_ that could possibly relief this unyielding, unending stress and sadness that gripped her in its callous embrace. But she didn't do any of those desirable options. No…she would hold onto her sanity and persevere determinedly onward. Something told her that she wasn't the type to just simply give up.

She became aware of the heaviness of her head; it being weighed down by her soggy locks. Upon closer inspection, she saw the exact length cascaded roughly to about the middle of her pale thighs. It was really long…she really, really liked it that way conversely.

Her teeth were making a loud clattering sound and her body trembled with shivers. She realized that she definitely needed to find some sort of shelter tonight and attempt to find help tomorrow. Her blonde head inadvertently nodded, to assure herself of a concrete plan.

Yes, it was a cohesive and doable one.

She, Yamanaka Ino, would not cave into weakness. She, Yamanaka Ino, would not be crippled by this onus. She would survive at all cost…and find this person, that man, that voice in her head that had echoed so unfeelingly, who she _knew _had to possess the key to unlock her memories and annihilate the black barrier in her pathway.

Tenaciously, she strode forward, heading to the forestry ahead, a little grossed out by the odd squelching sound her feet made whenever her barefoot sunk into pliable mud. A concerned frown marred her soft features.

Once she found somewhere to stay, she for sure would have to clean her feet lest she incur some sort of disease.

* * *

Ino permeated the substantial viridian forest with tired cautious steps.

Aged, loose branches creaked like rusted door hinges in the arduous wind and long shadows trailed about and all around her. Her eyes flickered about at every noise made, every shadow that passed, wariness creeping on her face. She didn't know this area so she would have to be careful.

Her stomach rumbled out its displeasures but she blatantly disregarded it. It would have to wait until tomorrow. Further and further, she walked in a northern direction.

The rain had lessened slightly, but it was still annoying in her opinion because of the mere fact that it was still raining when she wasn't a big fan of rain at the moment. Falling leaves and twigs had tangled in her hair from overhead due to the trees. Her dainty face had small scratches on it from low branches. Dirt caked her ashen legs and most obviously, her feet.

Ino suddenly pondered on why she was in a night gown as she essentially hiked. Had she been sleeping when it happened? If so…where had she been?

_Come Ino…think…think hard…_

Desperately, she tried to remember that much, but alas, even with that, the wall of black obstructed her destination. A frustrated sigh burst unwillingly through her lips in a short steam.

Damn that cursed wall to hell.

Her body began to protest its fatigue as her gait became significantly unsteady and uneven. She stopped momentarily by a lofty broad tree and leant heavily on its sturdy brown bark for physical support.

Exhaustion was her major adversary at the moment. If she collapsed here, she methodically would not make it to see the light of the next day, dying of probable pneumonia.

She wearily pressed her forehead into the bark, squeezing her eyes shut with tight antipathy. Pale fingers on the tree gripped it, digging her short nails painfully into the wooden surface. The prickly twinge was patently ignored. Her stomach tightened.

Did she not say she would not yield into the weakness about an hour ago? Was she really that pathetic to just plop down and cry and wait to die? Was her will that frangible?

Her face crumbled in desolation and a stinging prick could be felt behind her closed eyes. Her lips opened partly and moving soundlessly, silently, forming words of unabashed supplication.

_Someone…please someone…I'm…I'm scared…_

She didn't know who to cry to, who to ask for help, who to beg to save her…those names were meaningless to her and yet they had had meaning. Once ago. But what's the point in crying to someone whom you have no emotional attachment to? Besides…they, whoever and wherever they were, couldn't save her…

The frigid rain seemingly became heavier as she sunk into a hopeless melancholy. Perhaps…it would be best to…just end her suffering and woe…let this forest claim her.

_What about your memories…?_ whispered a disdainful, earnest accent in her head; her voice of reason was meanly mocking her, _what happened to that valiant bravado you had earlier…are you giving up already? _

Ino sniffed lightly but remained pessimistically unspoken.

…_You really __**are**__ weak aren't you? _A short airy laugh echoed in her head. _A weak, pathetic, pitiable, dismal, frail, disgraceful, wretched, __**weak**__ little girl!_

The last statement was said in a deliberately, agonizingly slow in such an indiscreet manner that made its scornful deflation all the more brutal. Those words cut deep, very deep. It had a profound effect.

Something brought shining anger filled determination into her dark despair.

Those words…those spiteful…she sensed she had heard those coldhearted words before…more than one occasion. On innumerable occasions. She realized she had been called that…maybe by those useable faces behind the black wall that haunted the dark recesses of her mind. Or maybe they had thought her to be so.

_Weak._

That unkind horrid adjective arose in her core in a passionate sentiment. Ino gritted her teeth, and her eyes snapped open, that fiery spark glittering within.

_No…_

_Huh… What's that you say…? _The voice carried a tone leaking with malicious light humor subsequently feigning deafness.

_No…I'm… _Ino shook her head decisively. _I'm not weak!_

_Then get off your boat off depression and pursue onward, _demanded the voice harshly._ Prove it, damnit!_

"I will," she whispered out loud in a hardened voice. "I'll show you."

_Then I'll be watching…_ replied the voice surly.

_And I'll be showing,_ she countered back silently.

Ino will be damned if she let some stupid voice in her head down trod on her dignity like that. The blonde realized simultaneously that she was a stubborn person. The corner of her lips quirked up slightly. She shook her head, dismissing it…temporarily of course.

Curiously, she briefly wondered if she was perhaps insane for wanting to beat the voice in her head (which was technically her own) but brushed it off. No time for thoughts of self-doubt again.

Renewed with steadfast resolve, she pushed herself off the tree and stood firmly on her own. A hand clenched in a fist. Her eyes fastened on the endless path of tangled shrubbery she had yet peruse.

* * *

Yamanaka Ino was tremendously providential. Fortune had decided to take pity on the young girl.

She had found a place to take shelter from the bleary weather for the night. Her haven, a nature made crevice of boulders large enough for her to stand in, had been spotted once she had made it out of the outwardly infinite forest.

She couldn't describe the blissful happiness that had encased her in its benevolent hold.

She wasn't going to die!

…

Yet at least.

Still, she eschewed the pessimistic notion and celebrated inwardly all the same. She deserved this approbation. She had disproved that damned voice of arrogant motivation in her head. Prolonged rain showered down but even that didn't bother her and it almost seemed to lighten like her newly ebullient spirits.

Ino walked to her refuge for tonight. Quickly, she lifted one foot and shook it harshly to clear it of lingering mud and repeated this process with the other. Most of the thick brown substance came off…but she'd have to find a river to properly clean them tomorrow. Now she kneeled by the mini rock cavern and crawled inside. It was warmer…much warmer that being outside in the elements. But being severely damp, she was still cold.

Hoping to gain some semblance of body heat, Ino curled into the fetus position, wrapping her arms snugly around her legs which were bunched up to her chest. An aggravated sigh. Still she was cold…but it was the best she could do for now.

All that mattered was one thing: She had made it. She was safe (for now). She would live another day, see the light of dawn.

The next day however…remained vague, unclear.

Tired, weary orbs shut resignedly and before she knew it, she had drifted off into a state of dreamless slumber. She would see what morning would bring when she awoke.

* * *

**Author's Note**

I'm so sorry for the wait everyone! It was a tad longer though to make up. But the next chapter will be much longer as many things will happen. I'll finish it and have it up as soon as I can. Thank you all for the reviews and the favorite story/alerts. I really appreciate it. :D Hope I'm doing a fair job of characterizing Ino. Poor girl is going through a rough transition. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter even though there wasn't much action…I hope it wasn't too boring.


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